Laptops. Notebooks. Portables. Desktop-replacements. Brian. Whatever you call them, the laptop PC has done as much to change our lives as any other piece of hardware over the past 25 years.
10 portable PCs that changed the world
When the first laptops appeared in the early 1980s, they were a major breakthrough in computing convenience. For the first time you could use a computer that had a built-in keyboard, yet was so light you could pick it up and take it with you into the next room or on the train or plane into another time zone. But who could then have predicted the changes to come. Batteries that last all day, Mac and Windows operating systems coexisting peacefully on the same machine, the laptops as an entertainment unit?
Twenty-six years after the first laptop appeared, we're commemorating the 10 most important models. In chronological order, each of these notebooks represents a major turning point in technology, popularity or both. Although we might snicker now at some of their laughably small screens or pitifully slow processors, they paved the way for today's powerful portables.
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Comments
Herb Johson said: As usual these kinds of articles assume the personal computing world began in 1981 with the IBM PC That is factually wrong period CPM was first offered in 1976 and dozens to hundreds of companies made personal business and industrial microcomputers by 1981 One of them was Osborne and the Osborne 1 in 1981 was one of the first to offer a complete portable system with ALL necessary software editing programming telecommunication at one price from one company If one argues that the 24 pound system was hardly a laptop it was nonetheless far more portable and more complete than the desktops of the era A simple Wikipedia search for Osborne Kaypro CPM will find this and other computers of distinction well before 1981Herb Johnsonretrotechnologycom
was going to get really annoye said: I know this is PC advisor but I would have got annyoed if a MAC wasnt in the list and theres 3 All good choices and I even remember a couple of the early ones Ive just bought a Mac Book pro my first owned mac and with in a month Im beginning to wonder why I ever used Premeire on my windows PC
Anorak said: Has to be the MacBookPro - beautiful and intelligent